In this video, we are going to understand Tally table which is very useful in writing set based SQL queries. You can download the script which can be used to create the Tally table from below the video.

In this video, we are going to understand how join works internally. If you have a good understanding of joins and how it works, you can skip this video and move to the next video in this series. If not, lets start understanding the joins. You can download the script used in this example from below the video.

In this video, we are going to understand the query execution architecture which helps us to understand the importance of set based approach. When a T-SQL statement gets submitted to SQL server, it goes through multiple steps before we get the final output. Lets have a look on SQL Server query execution architecture.

This video will give you insight of the topic that we are going to cover in this series. We know that the thinking in terms of sets is creative and innovative and once you start understanding the concepts, believe me, you will find it is simple too. Writing set based queries needs a good understanding of SQL joins and other set based operators with some imagination ability, which we are going to learn in this course.

Welcome to my course “Unfolding | Set Based Approach”. This is my first video tutorial series. In this series, I am going to share the concepts and techniques being used to create set based SQL queries.

This course is not based on how to write queries (this you can find at many places), rather it is based on how to think in set based manner. This course contains real life examples with deep insights to explore set based concepts, so that you can start thinking in terms of sets. Lets watch this video which explains why we should use set based approach instead of cursors or loops.

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Microsoft has launched the SQL Server 2016. We can download and install it from here. However, when we start installation of SQL Server 2016, we can see some installation changes there. Prior to SQL Server 2016, “SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)” was a part of the feature list of main SQL Server installation (which starts after clicking on “New SQL Server stand-alone installation or add features to an existing installation“) but now it is available on a separate install. Below is the screen shot of the feature selection list of SQL Server 2016 and SQL Server 2014:

SQL Server 2016 Feature list 2016 vs SQL Server 2014 Feature List

In above image, we can see that the management tools was a feature of the core SQL Server installation process in SQL Server 2014 (right side image) but in SQL Server 2016 (left side image), it is not … More

SET and SELECT both can be used to assign values to the local variables in SQL Server. However, SET is an ANSI standard and also recommended by Microsoft to be used for variable assignment. In this post, “Set vs Select – Assigning variables“, we will explore the behavior of SET and SELECT statement during variable assignment from a query.

When we use a scalar subquery (which returns a single value) to assign a local variable using SET or SELECT, both statements behave similar. It means, if subquery returns no rows, they set variable to NULL during variable assignment. But when a column name from a query (which is not a scalar subquery) directly assigns to a local variable using SELECT statement and the query returns 0 rows, then the variable value remains unchanged.

As per its nature, SET statement uses a scalar subquery to assign a local variable … More